Source A: Pliny the Younger, Letters 8 (to a friend who was planning to write a poem about the Dacian War)
'You do well to plan to write about the Dacian War. For what subject is so fresh, so rich, so vast, and finally so poetic - and, though completely true, so like a legend? You will tell of new rivers made to flow over the land, new bridges thrown across rivers, camps clinging to sheer mountainsides, a king driven from his palace and even from life, yet never losing heart; and you will tell of two triumphs, one the first over a people never conquered before, the other the last.'
To what extent was the conquest of Dacia a remarkable achievement? Use Source A as a starting point and your own knowledge.
Model answer
Source A presents the conquest of Dacia as an extraordinary achievement, so remarkable that, though 'completely true', it seemed 'like a legend'. Pliny lists real feats: 'new rivers made to flow over the land', 'new bridges thrown across rivers' and 'camps clinging to sheer mountainsides'. My own knowledge supports this. Dacia was a mountain kingdom with strong fortresses, and Decebalus had defeated Roman armies under Domitian, so beating him was no small task. The Romans crossed the Danube on a bridge of boats, and between the wars Apollodorus of Damascus built a great stone bridge at Drobeta, which Cassius Dio says he could not admire enough. Sarmizegetusa was captured, Decebalus was driven to suicide, and Dacia became a new province whose gold and silver paid for Trajan's Forum, his Markets and games on 123 days. Pliny's 'two triumphs' over 'a people never conquered before' show how glorious it seemed in Rome.
However, we should not accept Pliny's view entirely. He was a senator and a friend of Trajan, and in this letter he is encouraging a friend to write a poem, so he deliberately makes the war sound epic. The conquest needed two wars, because the first peace failed, and it came at a terrible cost: villages were burned, prisoners enslaved and families deported, as Trajan's Column shows. Rome also had far greater resources than the Dacians, so victory was perhaps to be expected. Nor was the new province easy to hold: Hadrian removed the upper part of the bridge for fear of invasion, and Dacia was eventually given up in the third century.
Overall, the conquest was a genuinely remarkable military and engineering achievement and brought Trajan enormous glory and wealth. But Source A is a flattering literary account, and the achievement must be balanced against its human cost and its limited permanence.
Explanation
Strong answers use Pliny's details (rivers, bridges, mountain camps, the king's death, two triumphs) and support them with knowledge of the bridge, Sarmizegetusa and the booty, then evaluate Pliny's purpose and the costs of the conquest. Recognising that the letter is deliberately literary and flattering is the critical analysis that reaches Level 4.
